Fast & Furious: Everything Revealed About Dom's Backstory

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As the central figure in the Fast & Furious franchise, Dominic Toretto's backstory has come into the spotlight, revealing bits and pieces of the character's origins. Vin Diesel has played the role of Dom for 20 years, with his debut in 2001's The Fast and the Furious. The actor will once again reprise his career-defining role for The Fast Saga's ninth installment, F9. Though the upcoming film is set to unearth new details into the Toretto family's past, several major details regarding Dom's early life can be linked to his current trajectory.

Dom has appeared in seven of the eight Fast & Furious installments, including a key cameo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. As the primary character in the film series, Dom serves as the group's leader that initially focused on crime before focusing on global endeavors. After spending years running from the law and encountering several corrupt figures, Dom and his crew began partnering with high-level government agencies to take down terrorists. What started as a street-racing franchise quickly turned into a full-blown action series. Granted, cars are still heavily featured in the series, with Dom depicted as the crew's best driver.

In F9, Dom will reunite with his younger brother, Jakob Toretto (John Cena). Rather than presenting a heartfelt family reunion, Dom's encounter with Jakob will be a tense affair. The brother is working with cyberterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron) to take down Dom. Jakob's existence is already a franchise retcon, seeing as he has never been mentioned in past installments. Instead, The Fast Saga has only introduced Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) as Dom's only sibling. Not only did Mia have a good relationship with her brother since childhood, but she has remained as one of his key supporters. Dom often had to lean on his sister and close allies since childhood, like future wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) after his father's death before the events in The Fast and the Furious.

What Happened To Dom Before The Fast Saga

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Dom and Mia's father, who remains unnamed in the franchise, was the pair's primary caregiver growing up. As the family patriarch, he took his kids to weekly church services and brought the Los Angeles neighborhood together for barbecues. Aside from owning Toretto's Market & Cafe, which Mia still worked at in the first movie, the family had a deep interest in cars. Dom helped his father build a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T, explaining his future love of muscle cars. In addition to building cars, Dom and Mia's father was a professional stock car racer. During the last race of a season, another racer named Kenny Linder ran Dom's father off the track, causing the vehicle to crash into the wall at 120 mph. According to Dom in The Fast and the Furious, his father was killed instantly, but the event set off a chain of events that would shape Dom's future.

Shortly after the death of Dom's father, Dom encountered Kenny before beating him with a wrench. Dom was banned from racing and sentenced to prison for a brief time. Considering Dom's age throughout the Fast & Furious franchise, he would have been in his early twenties during his prison sentence. When Dom got out, he turned to Mia, Letty, and his crew to begin a series of semi-truck hijackings. The death of Dom's father sent Dom down a dark path, but it also taught Diesel's character about the importance of family, a theme that carries on in the franchise to this day. With Jakob now in play, it will be interesting to see how he fits into Dom's existing origins.

F9/Fast & Furious 9 (2021)
Release Date: Jun 25, 2021